How Dianetics Became Scientology

Updated on October 16, 2013

Dianetics | Scientology | Tom Cruise

Scientology and Dianetics center. | Source

Book on Dianetics. | Source

Picture of Tom Cruise from article about how Scientology helped his dyslexia. "Diagnosed at the age of seven, Cruise describes his younger self as a "functional illiterate". He could barely read in high school or through his earliest roles." | Source

Dianetics and Scientology

Some people feel that Scientology is the greatest thing. Then others feel that it is the worst thing that exists.

Jerry Seinfeld tried it and felt that it helped him but did not stay with it since he was trying out different things.

Some say that Scientology is a scam of L. Ron Hubbard to make money. If that were the case would Tom Cruise and other celebrities like John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman, Priscilla Presley (was wife of Elvis Presley) and Jason Lee (star of My Name is Earl) still be practicing Scientology.

Also would Katie Holmes (from a Catholic family) marry Tom Cruise if Scientology was a scam. Of course in the Catholic religion there were many cases of sexual abuse against priests and nuns.

"The Associated Press estimated the settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950 to 2007 totaled more than $2 billion." The Catholic religion is the biggest religion in the world.

Below is a video of Minister Louis Farrakhan, who is a black Muslim leader, talking about why he does Dianetics. Note that now both Cruise and Travolta are licensed airplane pilots. This article was written October 12, 2013.

The United States government has given Scientology a tax exempt status as a religion to benefit people instead of the status of a company designed to make money (profit). Here is how the whole thing got started. Please note that if I were a member of Scientology I would not be allowed to write an article on them since that is reserved for their PR (public relations) people.

I did a great deal of reading of Scientology books and literature. L. Ron Hubbard observed that the way that psychiatrists (who are also MDs) treated the mentally ill was not humane. They used lobotomies where they cut out part of the brain, electoshock (that is now called electroconvulsive therapy) and drugs.

In medicine they treat cancer with cut, poison and burn. Cut is the surgery, poison is the chemotherapy drugs and burn is the radiation therapy. So they would treat the mentally ill with cut, poison and electric shock. Wikipedia says about lobotomy "By the 1970s, numerous countries had banned the procedure as had several US states."

So L Ron Hubbard decided to create a way to treat mentally ill people without using the above. Say that someone is in a car accident and her husband and 2 children die in it. It is normal for this woman to be extremely upset. Ways to treat it could be to cut out part of her brain, to give her electoshock or to drug her.

Another way would be for her to talk to a professional. So L. Ron Hubbard decided that the latter would be the best way. He started doing it and had an electric meter developed so that the therapist could see how much stress the patient is feeling while talking abouot something. Please note that I am avoiding using Dianetics/Scientolgy words so you do not need to learn a new vocabulary.

It could also be seen that people who remember traumatic events would be very stressed out. If they talk about it enough then they could get to a point where they accepted it and it no longer bothered them. They could talk about it without being stressed out.

So the therapist would search for these traumatic events and get a person to get to a point where these events no longer bothered them. This would cause them to be more in the present and happier similar to psychotherapy (treatment of mental or emotional illness by talking about problems rather than by using medicine or drugs).

L. Ron Hubbard was extremely good at doing this. This also included traumatic events that happened in the mother's womb. Now when they would do this with every traumatic event in a person's whole life, he would be happier and feel less stress in his life. They labeled this state of consciousness as being clear since they were clear of traumatic events that bothered by them.

He created a 678 page book about this called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Now with 20 million copies sold and translated into dozens of languages. Here are 2 things that L. Ron Hubbard has said that I like.

We have long said that that which is not admired tends to persist.

Try to control what you can control. Do not try to control what you cannot control.

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

Amazon.com says: With 20 million copies in dozens of languages, Dianetics has remained a bestseller for more than 50 years. Now used in more than 150 nations, Dianetics brings dramatic and permanent improvement to people all over the world.

The Introduction of Scientology

Now the above fits perfectly into the belief of 75% of the people in the United States and most of the people in the Western world, that there is no such thing as reincarnation. The clear could be considered a person in perfect mental health.

Before communism most of the people in the East were Buddhists or Hindus and in those religions, people believe in reincarnation and karma (the law of cause and effect).

Please note that in my article about reincarnation I pointed out that it was different than transmigration where people can come back as other animals and not humans since I had read that somewhere. But I read that Scientologists believe in past lives but not reincarnation.

I saw on a video 2 celebrity Scientologists with one saying that they believe in it and the other saying they do not. Also one was saying that if 2 people claim to have been Cleopatra, then there would be a disagreement. But I feel that a soul can split into 2 souls. I just read the following from an encyclopedia that says:

Doctrine of the rebirth of the soul in one or more successive existences, which may be human, animal, or vegetable.

But in my article below the MD that interviewed thousands of children that found that some recalled past lives, but none as an animal or vegetable. So if this is what reincarnation means then there is no word to refer to someone who comes back a different humans.

Although the dictionary does say this for reincarnation:

b: rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; especially: a rebirth of a soul in a new human body

Now in Scientology version of psychotherapy, they call it auditing that means listening. Audit-- attend (a class) informally, not for academic credit. The following comes from the Scientology books, The Research and Discovery Series. These books are different than other Scientology books. They are more like L. Ron Hubbard's journal or diary.

Others that did auditing were reporting to Hubbard that people being auditing would run into memories of things that happened to them before they were born. He told them just to ignore them since they could not possibly be true. This also happened to him while being an auditor (the one doing the auditing). One thing that you can say about L. Ron Hubbard (also called LRH) was that he loved reading and writing just the way I do.

One guy that LRH was auditing started telling about something that happened before he was born. Since LRH liked to experiment like a scientist, he decided to approach this memory as if it were real and see what happens. So he had the guy go over it again and again so that he was no longer stressed out about it. Now after this one session, this guy had better results than he had had with many months of auditing.

So this ruined LRH's complete and total science of mental health that could be respected by most of the people in the Western world eventually. See my article Is Reincarnation Possible to read about 2 MDs (medical doctors), one who is also a psychiatrist, that discovered a great deal about reincarnation.

So apparently the guy above was really troubled by a traumatic experience that had happened in a past life. Even though a person that was clear did not have traumatic experience from his present life that was bothering him, he could have traumatic events from past lives that were bothering him. Later they learned that people that were clear were more apt to be bothered by some past life traumatic experiences.

Two supporters of Dianetics were John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine and Joseph A. Winter M.D. Dr. Winter submitted papers outlining the principles and methodology of Dianetic therapy to the Journal of the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1949, but these were rejected. When the issue of reincarnation came up Campbell and Winter created a resolution to ban the topic.

So after clear, LRH created OT levels that do deal with the traumatic experiences of past lives. They have released OT levels I through VIII but have the notes from LRH on more OT levels. LRH died or left his body in 1986 but a few days later he came back and visited. I am just kidding. That happened to Jesus Christ.

So in Dianetics they had the idea of someone reaching an ultimate state where they had perfect mental health. But in Scientology they do not have that. There is no technology where someone can reach an ultimate state of perfect mental health. So in Scientology you will not be dealing with anyone in a state of perfect mental health.

Common Objections to Scientology | Looking at it Scientifically

I have been looking at many videos about Scientology in October 2013 when I wrote this. Many people make fun of an event that happened with Xenu. This event is confidential so Scientologists are not allowed to talk about it. My mother taught me at a young age that if there is something that you do not want everyone to know about, then do not tell it to anyone.

Also this event was supposed to have happened 75 million years ago. Now ask any anthropologist what life was like at that time. They will tell you that the earth was here, but people were not. Then ask them what life was like at that time on other planets light years away. A light year is the distance that light travels in a year. They will tell you that they have no idea.

So you could ask them were there Jedi Knights or were there super beings like Superman or were there space ships and they will tell you that they have no idea. So how can anyone say that things were not like a certain way, 75 million years ago.

It comes back to Dianetics and Scientology. L Ron Hubbard had no idea what he was getting into. He thought that since people have only one life, then he would only have to deal with the past 100 years. That was manageable. But with past lives, how many billions of years does he have to deal with.

Also to show that LRH was a con man, they attributed the saying to him, "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion." Now LRH was a prolific writer of science fiction but so was H.G. Wells and he originally said this.

With Dianetics, LRH thought it had nothing at all to do with his massive creative ability to write science fiction. But with Scientology and past lives he realized that all that science fiction he wrote, was not completely made up. This is another way that people put down LRH. They say that he did not invent everything in Scientology himself like talking to people to help them (psychoanalysis) or an electric meter to measure stress (lie detector).

Also he did not invent the paper that he wrote on. He did not invent the pencils or pens that he used to write with. He did not invent the car that he drove around in. L Ron Hubbard never claimed to be like Elon Musk. Musk created the electric car that could travel over 200 miles with a single charge. The next best one is the Nissan Leaf that can go 84 miles on a single charge. This is why Tesla is a great company to invest in.

Other Things That Have Something in Common with Scientology

Wikipedia used to say "In all branches of yoga, the ultimate goal is the attainment of an eternal state of perfect consciousness." I have been doing yoga since age 12. I believe that a state like the above does exist and that a human being can attain this state.

Now does this have anything to do with Eckhart Tolle and his teachings about being in the present to be happy? Yes! Eckhart Tolle was very depressed for a while and then he just became very much in the present moment where he was much happier. He was not following any practice when this happened so he can tell people that it is a great state of consciousness to be in, but he does not really know how someone can get there.

What keeps a person from being in the present? To use Scientology jargon or terminology, a person has lots of attention units trapped in past events that were traumatic. The more of these units that are trapped in the past, the more mental issues the person has and the more he is living in the past and future.

When a person goes over these traumatic events and is no longer bothered by them, the attention units that were trapped in them get freed and so they return to the present. So the more someone does this, the more of their attention units are in the present. We know that just trying to be more in the present does not work.

Personal Experience with Auditing

Here is an example of auditing with myself. I was upset by the divorce with my wife. During auditing I went over it a few times. Then they the auditor told me to to go the next previous, similar event. So I went over my wife trying to kill herself. Note that in death or divorce I am no longer with her. So they said that again and I went over my mother dying.

L.Ron Hubbard was able to see that whenever something happened to someone, they had done it to someone else previously, including in a past life. This is called karma and the TV show that is produced by Scientologists, My Name is Earl, is about karma. So they are teaching people that you sow what you reap (taught by Jesus Christ in the bible).

Then after going over it a few times the auditor asked me again to go back to the next previous, similar event. Then I went over my mother trying to kill herself. I guess these are all forms of rejection. These traumatic events form chains. Then when something similar happens, it causes a restimulation of the whole chain and that causes one to be very upset.

As far as costs of Scientology, they have 2 systems. One is the expensive kind where you pay to have auditing done on you by experts. The other is much cheaper since you learn how to do it and the auditing is done on you by others learning it. The latter is said to be better. At the upper levels of OT, everyone needs to know both since they will be doing a lot of auditing on themselves.

In the second comment below I mention how in Scientology it is very important to know what a word means that you are using and the way to do that is to look it up in the dictionary. Then it describes what a cult is. It has 3 different meanings.

Best-Selling Books

It said that the book Dianetics had sold over 200 million copies so I wanted to see how this compares with other best-sellers. According to Wikipedia, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens has sold 200 million copies. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien sold 150 million copies. Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry sold 140 million copies. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown sold 80 million copies.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling sold 44 million copies. In high school I had AP (advanced placement) French and we read The Little Prince in its original language of French.

Top 10 Celebrity Scientologists. Tom Cruise learned about Scientology by his first wife actress Mimi Rogers. It helped his dyslexia.

John Travolta on Scientology

Minister Louis Farrakhan- Why We Use Dianetics. He says on this video "What happened yesterday is driving your madness today!"

About the video below this

I was mentioning above that you would not find any people with perfect mental health in Scientology. Here is an example of this. She did not have any disagreement with what is written in a Scientology book but with how a Scientologist treated her.

The following is what I observed in the people. Of course I cannot say that it is part of the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard or Scientology unless I saw it in their literature and I have not seen it. They appear to operate on a belief that the ends justifies the means.

So let us say that a wizard brought you back in time right before the 9-11 tragedy. Then he explains to you that if you rape and kill 2 women, then he will prevent the 9-11 tragedy. Well if you believe in the ends justifying the means then that would be a good deal since 2 women would die but 3,000 would be saved.

But I do not believe in the ends justifying the means. So I observed Scientologists acting like they will do anything to promote Scientology since it is good for people. So the guy mentioned in this video probably believed that what he was doing was good for this woman and that is why he did it.

But the free will of a human being is very important and sometimes people need to learn by making mistakes. Also the people who work for Scientology are judged by the numbers that they produce and that motivates them to do whatever to make their numbers higher.

Now I myself did not have any problems with the above. I thought that the way that they were so pushy was kind of funny. The person that sells the services is called the registrar. I was friends with the registrar but he was pushy with me.

The first time that I went there I liked everything but I told him (registrar) that I will not decide at that time but at a later time what I will do. He did not like that and asked why. Then I told him that a person should make their decision while on their territory instead of on an opponent's territory.

To avoid any problems like the above, remember that since you are paying for it, they work for you and you are the boss. When you work a job, you do it for the money. They can fire you or you can quit, but then you do not get paid the money. The exception to this is when you are robbed. You are paying the money but they are the boss, until the police arrests them.

Once I asked the registrar if he remembers who he was in his past life. He told me that in his past life, he was a con man. So I said that that helps him with what he is doing now and he agreed. Also there was this very beautiful looking woman that was always very pushy with me trying to get me to do the purification rundown. This rundown is described in my article about Avoiding Colds and the Flu under sweating.

So I did not like her being that way and she treated me like she does not care about me at all but getting me to sign up for that service. But something happened to her that caused her to be more humble and have more humility. I got to know her better and she was wonderful.

I fell in love with her and she lived with me for 10 days. We were talking about her moving in permanently but I asked if it was OK if we did not get along, that I could ask her to move out and I would let her have as much time as she needed.

But she did not like hearing that and she moved out and went to live with her mother in another state. She was one of my favorite loves ever and I still carry her picture in my wallet. Her name is Liz Ellenoff and she grew up in Long Beach, NY.

Dianetics and Scientology will take your Money

Scientology Video: L. Ron Hubbard: Founder

The Way to Happiness Movie (2010) from Scientology

John B Fleming said "I'm 70yrs old and FINALLY someone wrote a Common Sense guide to being alive. This is Brilliant. Absolutely incredibly Brilliant!"

Andromeda says " bought this movie to be able to show to my young daughter to get her familiar with some of the basic ideas of how to live life and be happy. She loved the movie (her favorite was to practice) and she insisted on getting a copy of the book for herself.

This movie helped answer some of her questions on how she act around her friends and how to make sure everyone stays happy."

Comments 3 comments

Interesting hub on Scientology. I am intrigued by all the celebrities that are into this. Something about this so-called religion feels cultish to me.

Chuck Bluestein 3 years ago from Morristown, AZ, USA Author

Maybe I should have addressed this in the article, but it already is a long article. In Scientology they feel that it is extremely important to know what words mean that you are using. So what is a cult? They feel that you can learn what a word means by looking it up in the dictionary and Merriam-Webster is the best.

But no, L Ron Hubbard did not invent the dictionary, but they still use it. Not knowing what a word means can get you killed. For example if a black person is acting stingy, do not call him a niggard (stingy person).

Cult-- a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous

: a situation in which people admire and care about something or someone very much or too much

: a small group of very devoted supporters or fans

So in the first definition, Christians are not in a cult but the people who followed Jesus were in a cult and could be killed or fed to the lions for it.

In the 3rd definition people who liked computers many years ago were in a cult but now they are not in a cult. When the car was new people who drove cars were in a cult, but that is not the case any more. People who used to bathe often were in a cult many years ago but that is not the case anymore.

Now the second definition of cult is what they are referring to when they say that Tesla is a cultish stock. Its CEO (Elon Musk) is also CEO of SolarCity and SpaceX that has received $450 million in contracts from NASA. Musk is also a billionaire genius and a movie actor (Iron Man II and Machete Kills).